PARLIAMENT MONSOON SESSION 19 – AN OVERVIEW

PARLIAMENT MONSOON SESSION 19 – AN OVERVIEW

In what was one of the most productive sessions of the Parliament, it passed important bills during the Monsoon sitting between July and August. The Government extended it from July 26th to August 7th. After all, it was important to accommodate every bill was important.

Let Us Look At Some Of The Prominent Decisions And Recently Passed Bills That Made The Headlines.

1. The scrapping of Article 370

The Jammu and Kashmir (Reorganization) Bill, 2019 was passed by the Lok Sabha on the 6th of August and by the Rajya Sabha on the 5th of August, 2019. On the 9th of August, The Presidential assent to legislation for bifurcation of Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh was also given. This formed 2 Union Territories – J&K and Ladakh.

The Central Government notified that the Act will come into being on the 31st day of October 2019. The President will appoint the Lieutenant Governer under Article 239 of the Constitution. And he will have all the administrative powers. 166 state laws will remain in force, and seven laws will be applicable with necessary amendments. Consequentially, this bill had a lot of supporters as well as opposers.

2. POCSO Act amendments

The Parliament passed the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Amendment) Bill, 2019 on the 1st of August, 2019. It amended existing laws to give out strict punishments for sexual offenders.

Any penetrative sexual offense committed by a relative of the child, public servant, police officer or anybody having superior authority will subject to a minimum punishment of 20 years. The maximum punishment would be the death penalty. Any sexual offender other than the above-mentioned will get a minimum of 10 years. This was 7 years before the amendment.

3. The penalization of instant triple talaq

The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, 2019 was finally passed by Lok Sabha on the 25th of July, 2019 and by the Rajya Sabha on 30th Of July, 2019. This bill penalizes all provisions related to instant triple talaq or “talaq-e-bidat” in written or electronic form.

It is now a criminal offense with 3 years of imprisonment. Instant triple talaq is now unconstitutional. Amongst other recently passed bills, this one was pretty controversial. As a result, it faced opposition as well as support.

4. UAPA Amendment Bill

The Rajya Sabha passed the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Amendment Bill, 2019 on 2nd August. This was after the Lok Sabha’s nod of approval on the 24th of July. This bill amended the existing UAPA, 1967.

It deals with its clauses associated with the investigation and prosecution related to terrorism. As a result, the Centre, in its discretion, can declare an organization a terror unit if it commits or participates, promotes, prepares or is in any manner involved in a terrorist act.

The Parliament passed several other monumental bills during the session.

Some Of The Important Ones Are –

After a glance at the decisions taken during the monsoon session, we can conclude that it was a very productive one. There were healthy debates and fruitful question hours. Hence, India, as a democracy, can be proud of the way the parliament functioned in the past month.